This week, we’re celebrating a very special birthday for a very special podcast boy. Ian is turning three decades old this week! And so is A Very Special Christmas, the 1987 holiday charity album that along with debuting “Christmas in Hollis”, featured the two songs that Ian inexplicably chose for this week’s episode. We listen to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” by John Cougar Mellencamp and “Santa Baby” by Madonna because… well, it’s birthday boy’s choice.
This week, a listener request asks us to consider updated versions of two much-beloved Christmas tunes with well-documented problems – “Fairytale of New York” as performed by KT Tunstall and “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as performed by Postmodern Jukebox. Thank you to Liam for the request!
This week we cover a listener request that lets us treat ourselves to some delightful jazz and captivating blues – and reveals, perhaps, how little we know about jazz and blues. Thank you to Paul for requesting “Christmas Night in Harlem” by Louis Armstrong and “Santa” by Lightnin’ Hopkins!
Ian and RJ are back, and they are melting! This week we struggle through two novelty songs in which children make outlandish, and perhaps disturbing, demands – “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” by Gayla Peevey and “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” by Spike Jones and His City Slickers.
This week, our list grows to 250 songs, and we partake in our tradition of surprising each other with songs aimed at the top and the bottom of the list. Ian’s pick for the top causes tears of joy to flow and hearts to swell with love, while RJ’s pick for the bottom is all about hatred.
We did it, y’all. We made it half-way through 2017. Next Christmas is only 200 days away! To celebrate, we’re looking back at the best and worst holiday albums of 2016. The charming “I’m Your Santa” by Chance the Rapper and Jeremih is our pick for best, and the incomprehensible “Drivin’ the Pig (Manejando el Cerdo)” by the incomparable Jimmy Buffett is, well, you know.
We’re celebrating National Doughnut Day with two songs celebrating doughnuts – specifically, sufganiyot, jelly doughnuts eaten at Hanukkah time! “Sufganiot” by A.K.A. Pella is a love song to this fried food while “A Land Called Sufganiyot” by Mama Doni Band is more of a sci-fi/horror journey.
We cover two Christmas duets with two different takes on love. An anonymous request introduces us to “Christmas TV” by Slow Club, a guileless song full of yearning and affirmation – we pair it with “Are You Coming Over for Christmas?” by Belle & Sebastian, which might be the audio equivalent of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” cosplay.
This week, we made the ill-advised decision to theme an episode around Armed Forces Day! The strangeness of “Snoopy’s Christmas” by The Royal Guardsmen is somewhat overwhelmed by nostalgia, but we have no such fond attachments to “Christmas in Fallujah” by Cass Dillon. Thanks to Chris and Matt* for the request!
This week, we’re going back to basics. No gimmicks, no conspiracy theories, just straight-up rock ‘n roll. An anonymous request leaves RJ and Ian pondering a pair of somewhat sleepy indie-rock songs: “It’s a Lonely Christmas” by The Charters and “Come on Santa” by The Raveonettes. We discover a novel way to improve the latter, but find the former mostly unsalvageable.